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As we have seen, All-Father Othin hung upon that tree and, like Christ upon the cross, was pierced by a lance: the lance, his own; and he, a sacrifice to himself ( his self to his Self
) to win the wisdom of the runes. The analogy to be made, however, is rather to the Buddha at the Bodhi-tree than to Christ upon the cross, for the aim and achievement here was illumination, not the atonement of an offended god and the procurement thereby of grace to redeem a nature bound in sin. But on the other hand, in contrast to the Buddha, the character of this Man of the Tree is entirely with the world, and, specifically, in heroic-poetic disposition. Every day, in his great warrior hall, the champions at dawn arise, put on armor, go into the court, and fight and fell each other. That is their sport. And at evening they return to be served by Valkyries and inexhaustible mean, to sit later with them in love. And of the mead of poesy, as well, this god is the possessor and dispenser. For it was in the arts of war, in the arts of skaldic verse, and in the wisdom of the runes, that the power and glory of the Viking fleets consisted.

Poetry itself was Othin’s ale, and in poetry of his sort resided the power of life. But of himself there are so many forms and names that, as a bewildered royal candidate for his wisdom once complained: “It must indeed be a goodly wit that knows all the lore and the examples of what chances have brought about each of these names.” To which the god himself, in the disguise of a mystic teacher, made reply: “ It is truly a vast sum of knowledge to rake into rows. But it is briefest to say, that most of his names have been given him by reason of this chance: there being so many branches of tongues in the world, all people believed that it was needful for them to turn his name into their own tongue, by which they might the better invoke him and entreat him on their own behalf. But some occasions for those names arose, also, in his wanderings; and that matter is recorded in tales. Nor canst thou ever be called a wise man if thou canst not tell of those great events”

Perhaps of all Othin’s wonders the most remarkable, however, is the fact that the last of his poets, to whom we owe the passage of his knowledge to ourselves, were professing Christians. Both Saemund the Wise ( 1056-1133 ), to whom the compilation of the Poetic Edda is credited, and Snorri Sturluson ( 1179-1241 ), the great warrior chieftain, skaldic poet, and author of the Prose Edda, prefigure something of the spirit of those poets of the Renaissance for whom the gods of the Greeks supplied the mystic language of an order of revelation antecedent to that of the Church. The Eddic system was--for those who knew how to read--eloquent of the same Stoic and Neoplatonic themes out of which the noblest minds of Europe had for centuries gathered strength; and for those of a Pelagian conviction of heart, for whom nature could never be convincingly traduced, the old gods were not unfitting associates of the angels. They were, in fact, the northern counterparts of the very gods of those Hellenistic mysteries of the naughting of the self, out of whose iconographies the ritual lore and setting of the gospel of Christianity itself had been derived. Thus in the Eddas, no less that in the Celtic hero tales, we have, as it were, the serpent-lions of The Book of Kells without the Gospel text: the setting ( one of faith might say ) without the jewel of price. However, to those who had learned the reading of the runes--for which Othin gave himself in gage--nature itself revealed the omnipresent jewel.

That's why I mentioned the Jews - they preserved theirracial religion under millennia of attempted coercions, but managed to maintain it; I can't believe the Germanics could fail here without there being another reason.

I think we could get more answer by looking at the Hindus than by looking at the Jews. After all, they kept a sister religion to our ancestors' religion alive in the face of internal philosophical pressures (like universalism, monotheism, saviorism) from Jainism, Buddhism, and Sikhism on the one hand and external societal pressures (like forced conversions and colonialism) from Islam and Christianity on the other. If one Aryan religion could survive those pressures, why didn't our own ancestors' religion do it? What did Hinduism do to adjust to those pressures? Could our ancestors have adjusted their religion in the same way?

it "failed" because of the Germanic/Nordic peoples lust for money that the church offered and they were conned by the Jew God

In order to build Odinism into a valid and inspiring religious expression we must overcome this tendency to trivialise divinity. The gods are not Vikings…they are spiritual beings, potent forces of numinous power"
(Odinic Rite)

it "failed" because of the Germanic/Nordic peoples lust for money that the church offered and they were conned by the Jew God

Or it could be christianity offered a Heaven and a God to all with a mythology they could relate too? I don't think there is a simple answer, but the above could of played a role as pointed out by HR Ellis Davidson in Gods and myths of Northern Europe.

But as most people had little in the way of money and power and little chance of getting it, so the above statement doesn't ring true.

A feeling that the enemy also used divide and rule against them, and only by being united could they succeed?

And yet for a fiercely individualist and fragmented people, with so many jealous rivalries, perhaps it was thought that only an alien creed could unite them [as it did not belong to any particular Germanic tribe].

In the meantime, the Old religion could be sustained by a secret priestly underground.

Originally Posted by Psychonaut

I like Wiligut as a magician, but as an historian he was not even reliable enough to be taken seriously by the Ahnenerbe.

But there are different forms of history, and Wiligut's history is not meant to be that of scientific historiography, but rather a symbolic history.
It therefore has a certain poetic truth that dry, factual, history lacks.
A proposed underground conflict between Wotanists and Irminists which carried on during the Christian period up to the present is certainly suggestive.

Why are there beings at all, & why not rather nothing?
[Leibniz/Heidegger]

I think we could get more answer by looking at the Hindus than by looking at the Jews.......

If one Aryan religion could survive those pressures, why didn't our own ancestors' religion do it? What did Hinduism do to adjust to those pressures? Could our ancestors have adjusted their religion in the same way?

The question raised concerns the Germanic Faith ; the Hindus are not included.... and whilst there may be linguistic links within the old 'Aryan' languages (Sanskrit - old Iranian - Greek ) - and even an 'overlap' with some ideas within the RigVeda, their earliest text of all, it is a very long way into space and time to the late northlands! It would not be wise to go too far along that distant road.... except to say that the Hindu creeds were deeply established for well over a thousand years before the Jesus time, and the Buddhist heresy was never so militant as to undermine the race hierarchy which probably maintained them then --- and may well still do so - from what I've seen of it! !

In Europe it was all change!!! The Celtic Millennium held sway over much of Europe with an essentially unGermanic outlook... or perhaps better, a pre-Germanic one. Germanic folk came south increasingly around the time of the Romans; in the Celtic era, the north was shut off somewhat - even to some extent shut out. Old lines of commerce and trade were broken. Only after their moving southwards from the north, did Germania itself become progressively Germanized by them. The Celtic age was slowly transformed; the Romans also played their part, playing one tribe off against another..... until they themselves found the pressure from the north and east too much to bear!

Southern England soon turned Christian with the conversion of a King ; pagan sites were cunningly "turned" by order! Yet old folkways continued; runes were not quickly forgotten! In the north of Germany, the church made slow progress.... but the old ways were increasingly undermined by the relentless push of the new Roman Empire, the catholic church! Even into Scandinavia itself - but it wasnt that easy - memories continued. The Baltic States retained a pagan presence into the 13th century....and who knows, rooted also in Scandinavia itself... ripe therefore for Luther's historic revolt against the centre!! And that revolt fed upon itself, creating more and more conflicting divisions , dissension and fragmentations. Undercurrents of objection and alternative began to flourish in places both high and low. Perhaps it was then, once more, the old Gods were remembered again, not dead - but merely in retreat, awaiting,forgotten.

Centuries of persecution they say, of denial and suppression. Perhaps its hard for us to understand. But our folk were not then a people under external threat of invasion (which we have today in places!); they were subject only to the rulings of a new christian interpretation.... but a far more flexible one - which soon found itself undermined by popular indifference. In this climate, the old Gods then reappear in many ways; they take their chances against all other things.....

[ As for the Jews, if we must , they clung together around their faith and kind since this alone maintained their identity. Beyond it ,was oblivion for them per se. Sufficient survived to continue their existence. Were it not so, they would not be present! But it was so. Others always were; even the Sagas speak of the blue men in the distant south(!) .... and also of Jerusalem. So ? ]

Why didn't our own ancestors' religion survive? ... but it did! Do we not still read the scripture? Whoever said the Gods had died... also lied!

I think we could get more answer by looking at the Hindus than by looking at the Jews.

That is not the case at all. As Daniel Boyarin notes, and as I have alluded to: "Jewishness disrupts the very categories of identity, because it is not national, not genealogical, not religious, but all of these, in dialectical tension." This is not at all the case with Sanātana Dharma. The two have had markedly different affect upon the face of Europe. That is to say that the former has had one with respect to the question at hand; and the latter none.

After all, they kept a sister religion to our ancestors' religion alive in the face of internal philosophical pressures (like universalism, monotheism, saviorism) from Jainism, Buddhism, and Sikhism on the one hand and external societal pressures (like forced conversions and colonialism) from Islam and Christianity on the other.

But there is noOne Sanātana Dharma (indeed, "Hidu-ism" is a misnomer). There are, rather, a plurality of belief and phenomenological orientations originating and rooted in the Vedas; the 'splits', themselves, in adaptive, and incorporative, response to the pressures you mention (Cf./Eg. Brahmo Samaj/the Theosophical society).

In other words, this "sister religion" survived, but in fractured form. Never in any way did Sanātana Dharma face an analagous pressure from Christianity, as you imply, to Europe; however, we can see in some of today's Sanātana Dharmaic denominations, an overlap with Judaism. Whereas in Europe, we see Paganism/Germanic Heathenism overlapped with Christianity; itself rooted in Judaism, but in a much greater literal, and figurative, distance.

If one Aryan religion could survive those pressures, why didn't our own ancestors' religion do it?

It did, though. They just faced different pressures. The adaptive and incorporative responses were different, therefore.

Originally Posted by Moody

One would have thought that the Germanic religion of flux would have had at least one advantage over the Monotheisms - i.e. its ability to adapt and adjust.

A historical 'failure' is not a future impossibility of resurrection. I mean, did it "fail", or is Germanic Heathenism a stinking corpse.

And what constitutes the "failure"?

I tend to lean toward the idea that couching things in such terms is rather indicative of one not... available to Heathenry. I am, of course, speaking generally.

As far as whether or not Germanic Heathenism practiced today is "genuine" or not, a nay sayer puts a latteral burden on himself to show that it is not. The question, itself, presupposes that the asker of the question has an answer that they, themselves, can 'cite'.

I, for one, have my Blood as my citation.

Last edited by SuuT; Monday, September 29th, 2008 at 01:04 AM.
Reason: Clarity/Getting to the point.

"...The moral man is a lower species than the immoral, a weaker species; indeed - he is a type in regard to morality, but not a type in himself; a copy...the measure of his value lies outside him. ... I assess the power of a will by how much resistance, pain, torture it endures and knows how to turn to its advantage; I do not account the evil and painful character of existence a reproach to it, but hope rather that it will one day be more evil and painful than hitherto..." (Nietzsche)

Hindus were able to develop a Monism, which allowed for folk practices, and communion with a personal god, but also with a cold, rational, abstract and impersonal conception of the Deity. As I pointed out earlier the Roman empire was moving towards Monism with the Mystery religions, but was struck down by Constantine's deathbed conversion, and the edicts forbidding indigenous religion instituted by Theodosius.

The paganisms at the time could've accomodated a wide range of philosophies, as the various Hinduisms accomodate different movements today.

The Catholic Church as I said can serve as a model for what really happened. Here you have a church that has a hierarchy which holds the keys to the Kingdom of Heaven and it is only through the dispensation of this hierarchy by which common laypeople may get to Heaven.

Catholic hierarchy members wear church vestments designed by Versace with super-expensive gold thread... The Pope wears patent Italian red leather shoes, and sits in the biggest antique gallery in the world. They have more access to ancient texts than anyone in the world, holding them under lock and key.

The Church has attempted to monopolize knowledge, but even more than that, it has attempted to monopolize symbols i.e. the Cross, the Mother, the Conquering Child, the risen Sun God, the Virgin, the Father-Regent, the Triune Deity, the Sacred Heart, Pain, Passion, Suffering

Part of Catholicism is focusing on "mysteries" like the ancient mystery religions. Catholicism is a mystery religion , one gets to Heaven through the blessings and mediations of a priest who administers a grace giving sacrament.

Now tell me where in the Bible does it say "No one comes to the father except through a priest", "Render unto the Pope the things that are the Pope's" "Consecrate yourself to my mother, and venerate her as a goddess"

Christ said 'it is easier for a camel to enter through the eye of a pin than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven', where did he say that his Church should be filled with people wearing Versace gowns in gold-thread with patent leather Italian red shoes?

Where did he say use your gold to build garguantuan Nero palaces instead of giving to the poor?

He said you must give up everything and follow me (including your parents). Hardly the philosophy of an epicurean, hedonist libertine.

The Catholic (read Universal) Church has monopolized Universal Allegories and Symbols . It is only through personal interpretation of these symbols which allow men to see things clearly, one should not leave the interpretation of hijacked symbols to a cosmopolitan fraternity of shameless and degenerate libertines (unless of course, they are going to allow you the right to be a shameless and degenerate libertine as well.)

But there is noOne Sanātana Dharma (indeed, "Hidu-ism" is a misnomer). There are, rather, a plurality of belief and phenomenological orientations originating and rooted in the Vedas; the 'splits', themselves, in adaptive, and incorporative, response to the pressures you mention (Cf./Eg. Brahmo Samaj/the Theosophical society).

I disagree. If doctrine is truly eternal it can only be monotheistic (and not monistic, I might add, which is limiting); different points of view (or schools) within that doctrine and different paths adapted to the nature of one's caste do not constitute splits or sects for reasons I already explained, that being so long as the hierarchy of knowledge is maintained. These adaptations were already in place well before the Westernized reform movements (Brahma-Samaj was started on advice and inspiration from Western Protestant missionaries which it has most in common with) and the Theosophical Society (which is only a parody of Hinduism). I cannot stress enough how having a church (which is Semitic influence upon the West also) is incompatible with Hinduism (Brahma-Samaj is essentially a "Hindu Reformed Church"). So there is a marked difference between different perspectives and outright heresies. And indeed, heretical views occasionally came out of the different schools, for instance the atomist heresy; but these were defeated by the two top schools in the hierarchy in which no heresy has ever taken root. Now, today, we must recognize that Hinduism in India has seriously suffered from modern influences including communism and the notion of progress. Therefore we must admit that Semitic religion which is mostly sentimental and which gives rise inevitably to modernism is toxic to all superior forms because of its appeal to sentiment which is readily accessible to all.

This is all due then to the theory of degeneration, since all civilizations eventually degenerate: When religions fail they do so at a time when the moral, sentimental element is most developed to almost the exclusion of the others (ritual action and knowledge).

Last edited by exit; Monday, September 29th, 2008 at 04:22 PM.
Reason: added last sentence

That is odd, as you go on to explicate the 'splits' in more detail than I bothered with given the thread topic:

[...]different points of view (or schools) within that doctrine and different paths adapted to the nature of one's caste do not constitute splits or sects for reasons I already explained, that being so long as the hierarchy of knowledge is maintained [...?...}. These adaptations were already in place well before the Westernized reform movements (Brahma-Samaj was started on advice and inspiration from Western Protestant missionaries which it has most in common with) and the Theosophical Society (which is only a parody of Hinduism). I cannot stress enough how having a church (which is Semitic influence upon the West also) is incompatible with Hinduism (Brahma-Samaj is essentially a "Hindu Reformed Church"). So there is a marked difference between different perspectives and outright heresies. And indeed, heretical views occasionally came out of the different schools, for instance the atomist heresy; but these were defeated by the two top schools in the hierarchy [...?...] in which no heresy has ever taken root. Now, today, we must recognize that Hinduism in India has seriously suffered from modern influencesincluding communism and the notion of progress. Therefore we must admit that Semitic religion which is mostly sentimental and which gives rise inevitably to modernism is toxic to all superior forms because of its appeal to sentiment which is readily accessible to all.

There are, therfore, a plurality of belief and phenomenological orientations originating and rooted in the Vedas; the 'splits' (please recognise the inverted commas here: you may call the differences whatever you like), themselves, in adaptive, and incorporative, response to the pressures mentioned.

This is all due then to the theory of degeneration, since all civilizations eventually degenerate: When religions fail they do so at a time when the moral, sentimental element is most developed to almost the exclusion of the others (ritual action and knowledge).

I agree.

What say you then to the current degeneration and failure of Christianity?... Are we swinging up; or are we swinging down? What might this mean for Germanic Heathenism?

Is it beginning a new ascent from nadir?

If doctrine is truly eternal it can only be monotheistic

Spoken like the true Hanīf. Somehow, I think you mean something else.

(and not monistic, I might add, which is limiting)

Monism is.....limiting?....................................... ...

"...The moral man is a lower species than the immoral, a weaker species; indeed - he is a type in regard to morality, but not a type in himself; a copy...the measure of his value lies outside him. ... I assess the power of a will by how much resistance, pain, torture it endures and knows how to turn to its advantage; I do not account the evil and painful character of existence a reproach to it, but hope rather that it will one day be more evil and painful than hitherto..." (Nietzsche)